The global recession continues to create new realities for students, institutions, and faculty members engaged in higher education. This blog chronicles those changes for academic / historical record purposes. Click on the URL at the end of each posting to view the complete news report.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

The University of Southern Maine will face more financial difficulties in the next budget cycle, and other campuses in the University of Maine System could face similar problems without significant changes, interim USM President David Flanagan told the finance committee of the board of trustees on Monday. “All this sacrifice, all this angst at the university, including the shattering of the view held by many down there and throughout the system that when you had tenure you had a job forever, that was shattered on the rock of fiscal reality,” Flanagan said during a meeting at the system’s offices in Bangor. In the past year, he has overseen deep cuts at USM aimed at closing a $16 million budget gap, including the elimination of 51 faculty positions and the elimination of five academic programs.
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/03/10/usm-president-predicts-more-budget-woes/